Starform, a mobile games studio comprised of King and Z2 veterans, has raised $5 million in funding.

Formed in 2018 and based in Seattle, Starform is lead by CEO Lou Fasulo, who previously acted in the same role at Z2 for five years. The company raised $1.25 million in 2019 as part of its early-stage funding, with the aim of focusing on mobile games to play with friends. It also has a title currently in closed beta.

The investment will allow the firm to scale the team, which currently stands at 11 people. In addition to this, the studio aims to use the funds to market its upcoming game and begin work on future projects.

Bringing people together

"We’re big believers in creating this kind of experience that brings people together with shared goals and common purpose around the game world to explore, create, and compete," Fasulo told VentureBeat.

"That means prototyping gameplay ideas in a rapid fashion and working closely with players as we do that. This round of funding will allow us to start staffing up to pursue additional opportunities in the market, to grow our team a bit, and help us prepare for basically the first open beta that we’ll do later this year."

Funding was led by Bitkraft Ventures with participation from Dune Ventures, Global Founders Capital and VGames. Before this, Starform's previous round of investors included 1Up Ventures and Breakaway Growth Fund.

In other funding news, Indian social mobile gaming platform Eloelo recently raised $2.1 million that will be used to focus on creator partnerships and launch new live game formats.